From Johnson City we headed along the Texas Hill Country Trail through Fredericksburg and onto Highway 16 to Kerrville. Taking the highway with its nice wide hard shoulder saved us 10 miles and 800 feet of climbing. A no brainer really.

Throughout this cycle we follow the recommended Adventure Cycling Association (ACA) route when it suits. However, the ACA route favours backroads leading to campsites and avoids the major cities. We visit cities and favour motels so often take our own path.

This tends to place us, at times, on highways with traffic but, to be honest, cycling on a highway with a wide hard shoulder can actually feel safer than a single carriageway backroad where we are exposed to fast overtaking traffic, relying on vigilant drivers. Most Texan drivers have actually been good but every day we still experience the occasional ‘deadneck’ who comes within a foot or so of us.

Another experience we are still familiar with is punctures! We crossed Canada and Australia with one bike wheel puncture. On the road to Fredericksburg we suffered puncture number seven.

As I’ve explained before Susan doesn’t mend the punctures – she’s just the only available model I have to make a puncture repair photo more interesting. She’s cheap to employ, she smiles for the photo and only occasionally throws a ‘supermodel’ tantrum. No sorry, that’s actually me who has the tantrums and to be really honest, they’re more like ‘two year old tantrums’ – a puncture causes me to scream and stamp my feet! That’s actually the real reason I’m not in any puncture repair photos!

Along the way we passed many large Texan ranches. Cattle used to be huge in Texas when longhorn cattle were kept on wide open ranges and looked after by cowboys called vaqueros. At its peak, in the 1880’s, there were about five million longhorn cattle in Texas but numbers have declined for many reasons including low beef prices, drought and the end of the open plains.

From the late 19th century cattle have been kept in enclosed ranches and farmed in much smaller quantities. Do you know whose invention caused this? Well that will be Mr J. F. Gladden who, in 1874, invented, of all things, barbed wire.

This invention meant large areas could now be fenced cheaply and cattle were now enclosed and no longer roamed the plains. I’m now almost crying whilst I write this because do you know what it led to – the decline of the cowboy! The long drive was now a thing of the past – the age of the wild and free cowboy was gone all because of barbed wire!

Many Texan ranches no longer have cattle and the famous and historical YO Ranch last held cattle in 1941. Instead these ranches now have goats (for mohair) and are also hunting reserves for what they call ‘exotic’ animals. You see you are not allowed to hunt Native American deer which ‘belong’ to the state so ranches get around this regulation by keeping exotic deer and other animals.

Effectively, this means Susan and I cycle along and see a wide range of beautiful and colourful deer (that you would normally see in Africa and India) grazing beside a sign which says ‘come and hunt exotics’. I’m not saying anything more or I may start crying again. Oh, I wish barbed wire had never been invented, cows roamed free, nobody shot lovely cute deer and I could be a cowboy! 🤠

Talking about ‘exotics’, Susan and I met another exotic creature – a recumbent cyclist doing the cross America route!

Craig is heading west to east and is loving the hills as much as we do. His rear storage is a self made cool box and he has adopted a novel solution to the stand going through sand by fixing a golf ball on the end. Nice!

From Kerrville, we again left the ACA Route as the only motel at Leakey was fully booked. Instead we headed 76 miles (2900 foot ascent) along the lovely Highway 41. Well, lovely apart from the hills. You see this is the kind of route ACA misses as it hunts for campsites.

Unfortunately, there was only one place en route to grab some refreshments but what a place it was – the Garven Store, a local legend.

Doesn’t look like much but guess what? Yes, it did have the ‘best dang jerky in Texas’! We also had a sausage wrap which was a big 8 inch smoked sausage with a 3 inch tortilla wrapped around it! Susan ate some but didn’t like it because she has a really big problem with food like this – she actually looks at what she’s eating!

In my world, rule number one is cover the food product in the sachet of mustard provided, look at the surrounding view and stick the sausage in your mouth! The result was a damn fine tasty sausage wrap! Oh, and an added tip is always sit with your legs apart to allow the juices and fat flowing off your chin to miss your cycle shorts!

After lunch, the road flattened out as we approached Rocksprings and the early evening sun cast light over the Texan countryside.

As you will see from the photos, over the past few days there has been clouds and the temperature has peaked around 86f (30c) which meant for relatively pleasant cycling compared to the searing hot days.

At Rocksprings we stayed at the quaint Rocksprings Historic Hotel. Dinner was draft Bud Light and burgers at the illustrious Jailhouse Bar and Grill. It was a bit more jailhouse than illustrious but it was fine. The beer was cold and you never knock a place with cold beer.

The following day we set off for the 74 miles to Del Rio. Unfortunately it was one of those days when I felt I had man flu. I didn’t actually have man flu I just felt like I did! You see I need to eat a lot to keep going – yeah I know you’re surprised and seeing my pictures that maybe it has come as a bit of a shock to some.

When I don’t eat enough the ‘man flu’ symptoms appear – legs and arms like jelly. The remedy was to eat nearly everything we carried which wasn’t a lot – jerky, pecan nuts, banana and energy jellies. They helped a lot but I was so tired I nearly asked Susan to pre-chew my beef jerky for me but I think that would have tested our relationship.

So on this day the Texas hills were certainly no place for this old man but Susan pedalled well and got me through my very low spot. Which was just as well for in the last 15 miles to Del Rio the sun came out with a vengeance. It was Susan’s turn to falter and she felt dizzy under the heat. It didn’t help that we had run out of water as there was no opportunity to replenish over the 74 miles. But hey everything was okay because the big fat guy on the front was back in fine form and saved the day! That’s what I call teamwork.

Del Rio – 1560 miles down.

Ps before I leave you I’ve got to issue a retraction. Following the last post (Texas Hill Country Part 1) Susan’s lawyers have been in touch. I would like to clarify that at no time on this cycle tour has Susan worn nail polish or carried any bottles of said nail polish. I also promise to maintain the integrity of this blog and everything else I say from this time will be the truth.

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